


Fragments

by zoomalark



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon LGBTQ Character, F/F, LGBTQ Themes, Mental Health Issues, Multiple Relationships, Neurodiversity, Not Canon Compliant, Past Abuse, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:39:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19808701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoomalark/pseuds/zoomalark
Summary: What breaks cannot be brought back, but some see mosaics among the pieces.Post-reunification Ana/Symmetra, with a lot of hypotheticals and headcanons mixed in.





	Fragments

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone. This is my first-ever attempt to post my work on a platform that encourages and promotes fan-made works. This is not my first time writing, or even being involved in fandom and fan-related content. I see this chapter and work as a project of my own as a mean of testing my commitment to a "single focus," as deemed to many goal-orientated coaches.
> 
> I've always wanted to write a multi-chapter work on a big user platform, but my self-doubt and own personal issues made me avoid the dedication it takes to create a story. But now, I feel like I'm ready. I've been using writing as a way to channel my thoughts in day-to-day life in a way that others can similarly experience. Similarly, this is a good segue to preface my work with a few points:
> 
> \- A lot of how the characters act in this work are based on my own observations and experiences with others from all over. I try to be as respectful in their presentations as possible, but I also know that I am not immune to mistakes or ignorance. If you see a fault in my portrayals, please let me know and I will fix it as soon as I can.
> 
> \- Ana and Satya are 32 years apart. I know this. I also know that both of them are at the age of consent in every jurisdiction for a sexual and romantic relationship. I really don't want to hear the complaints on the politics of this dynamic because the answer is, "I know, and if people can post their stuff with their ships, so can I." 
> 
> \- There will be mentions of drugs, violence, and people doing and saying not-great things to each other, or doing risky behaviors. This is a reference to the first point: I draw a lot from my life experiences and this is the environment I work in. I find these qualities to be very human and common, and I, therefore, incorporate them into my portrayals of people. Your faves will probably smoke and take a hit or two if that's something you're wary about reading.
> 
> \- Lúcio, Satya, and Angela are trans. That affects their interactions and relationships. keep that in mind, too.
> 
> \- I try to make my work as socially conscious and sensitive as possible during every process, but I am aware of the centrism of my country (the US), and will likely make mistakes in the delivery of specific phrases or mannerisms due to my unfamiliarity. Similarly to the first point, please correct me if I make a mistake as the result of not knowing a subject. I approach everything with research, but I'm not perfect and often miss details.
> 
> \- I have original characters in this work to help build the story. They are the products of both myself and friends' discussions, and I find them important factors to enhance the experience of reading. I love them very much, but obviously, I also know that they're not central to the main point. If you want to see them in future stories or chapters, let me know, though. I spend a lot of time thinking about a whole cast of characters!
> 
> Lastly, please let me know what you think! I haven't seen any other work for this ship other than a suggestion for a writing/snippet exercise as opposed to a full-blown ship. This is me saying, "Please clap." Let me know what you think, leave kudos, comments, etc. I want to hear what your impressions are.

She’s not used to the sound of crashing waves.

At least not in person. Satya’s only familiar with the sounds she finds pre-recorded, honed to be all-encompassing. It doesn’t prepare her for the clutter of noise that comes with real waves: The gulls; the sand and salt that make her mouth feel dry and bitter. She stares into the pink-red sun and sees the afterimage in shades of yellow and green.

Gibraltar is hot in July with very little rainfall. The sky and water are disarmingly blue. An ever-present haze of salt and sea reaches endlessly. From here, Satya sees Morocco and thinks how there must be others on its shores, watching the setting sun and contemplating the lives of the ones across the strait.

It feels new, somehow, reflecting on her thoughts in silence.  
Maybe it’s because she has nothing to call her own.

Ever since she’d confronted Sanjay – she began to ask questions, have doubts – she’s a pariah to home. Or a target. Perhaps the more appropriate word for someone forced to flee, take refuge in the arms of she’s taught to despise — distrust of those using chaos in the name of a greater good. Overwatch was a “competitor,” according to Vishkar. A force to wrangle to enhance its panoptic vision. Eyes in all places, high and low. Ensuring that the ones involved remained uninformed, and the ones who resisted were taken out in ways that could be written off as tragedies. A gas leak to an explosion in Rio, the news said for weeks after. Faulty wires for malfunctioning equipment that happened to be vital to those who used their voice. The noise was chaos. They told her that -- it was something she could understand so painfully well. She lived in a world that felt too loud; she fought back by being louder.

As a child, she remembered screaming. Screaming so, so loudly, that her throat felt raw and stuffy and she couldn’t say anything else. Or she would cry and cover her ears. Fold the top to the bottom and press them flat with open palms and squeeze so hard she thought her head would split. But that was better than the noise. _Anything_ was better than when they shot the fireworks at Diwali. Or when someone broke a glass on the pavement. Or clanging pans that circled, circled, circled, until they settled to stillness. 

But that was before Vishkar...before they came in and helped her **be** someone. Like a prophet, they told her. Satya even got to shake the hand of its founder, a woman with short black hair that greyed at the roots and smiled to say she meant something.

“I have a _good_ feeling about you, Satya.”

She says it so profoundly, in a way that feels real, asking to take. Thus, Satya takes, and in return, she gives. And gives, and gives, and gives, to mean something in the end. To feel what she felt before, in front of the woman who gave her the means to build her.

And destroy her.

With the latter, she never said a word.

Nor did she have to. Rakshana spoke by the right of action. Satya’s questions became less critical among her colleagues. Glitches where she couldn’t log in for minutes at a time. Small things that purposefully set her off. Interrupted workflow for seconds. Minutes. Hours, eventually. Until the workload became too much and they started getting concerned. 

_Your performance is worrying us._

_Are you okay?_

People she knew for trusting her with her reliance.

Or did they?

It started becoming hard to tell. Satya’s having thoughts that maybe she wasn’t what they told her. She’s a failure, after all. Back to that time as a little girl, screaming again in a world that was too loud.

It brought Satya to Rakshana’s office, shaking and hurt, feeling lied to for years, because she wanted to be wanted.

Broken.

A broken nose. Literally. From the heel of Rakshana’s hand that reflected her own, crunching bone and making blood pour from Satya’s face and onto her side.

_That’s_ what years of effort earned her.

“I want you to listen, Satya.”

Now she’s speaking in the voice that meant something. But in a way, Satya pretends never to hear.

“You know my generosity. How much _I’ve_ given to you. What _you_ have now.” The pound of flesh was literal.

“So I’ll extend that now because I’m always consistent.”

Satya’s breathing stops.

“I’m going to let you leave. Walk out the door and let you start running. And I want you to hide. Find the people we told you to hate. Because they’re the only ones, who have a chance to keep you safe.”

Rakshana’s face never moves from anything but flat.

“And I hope you keep them close. We have eyes. They’ll know where you’ll be if you’re not smart enough.”

“I know you are, though. You’ve always been so smart, Satya.”

But not smart enough.

“So, I trust you. I trust you enough to use what I gave you to leave. And never come back.”

She clenches her bloodied hand into a fist to place under her chin. Thinker pose. Powerful and intimidating.

“The next time I say your name will be at your funeral service. We’ll cremate you and scatter your ashes. Company protocol for all of those who die under our service. Especially our brightest students.”

Beat.

“It’s what you wanted.”

With that, she’s finished talking.

Satya doesn’t think. She only feels and moves. Moves her hand, shaking, to drag her tongue across her it and smear it with blood and spit. Use that hand to reach out and touch Rakshana’s face. Dig her fingers in and drag and spread with so much force that Satya feels skin and blood wedging beneath her fingernails.

Rakshana doesn’t move and doesn’t speak. She lets it happen and stares, impatient. She’s waiting for Satya to leave.

And she does.

No one escorts her from the premises. The route is automatic. Work carries about like usual: heads down, a quiet volume — a laugh or two from some well-timed joke.

When the doors slide closed behind her, Satya stares into the sun.

It’s a beautiful day outside.

* * *

Another figure is next to her in minutes, pulling up in a car and opening the door. An academy graduate like her, built to be tall and wide. Someone she could genuinely trust. Satya might call her a former flame – a woman not afraid of what it meant to be selfishly alive. She watched American shows and adopted their speech of huns and babes like the people she saw in movies, in a language that fascinated her. She wore bright, beautiful colors and made Satya value the gift of patience.

They’d planned ahead of time. Satya packed a bag with the items she’d need -- a mix of practical and sentimental. Enough for her to carry a piece of something authentically her. Not a product of something taught and taken as gospel.

Kiran opens the door and buckles her in.

“C’ mon, baby,” she says, softly, also shaking and smoking another cigarette. “Let’s go.”

The door closes with a soft thud, and they drive off.

They drown out the hurt with music. Comfortably loud, filling the air that flows from the windows. The fade-in between songs makes for a few tense seconds, between Kiran’s hand reaching out and Satya pulling away. The discomfort is intentional. It’s so Satya can react to take herself away from what happened. So, she can tense and spit Kiran’s name in a way that Satya apologizes for later because it makes her feel better now.

Satya can’t stand waiting.

“Don’t look back,” is all Kiran keeps saying, every time her now-broken nails (and fingers, and knuckles) reach out to hold Satya’s hand. “Don’t look back.”

Don’t look back.

Don’t look back.

* * *

“Are you enjoying the view?”

She looks behind her.

Ana’s voice matches her appearance: A gentle but firm presence that demands attention when heard and seen. Her arms are in front of her, hands down and clasped — an indication of openness.

Vulnerability.

Satya doesn’t reply; her throat feels tight and tastes sour. But she’s not saying no. She’s glad Ana here to distract from the thoughts. She breathes in, holds, exhales and swallows. The bile thrust back down, her knuckles unclench, and Satya mimics Ana’s pose. Open. Vulnerable.

Together.

Ana walks beside her to see the sun disappear behind the sea.

“You picked a good time to come out here. The sea gets nice and quiet.”

Indeed, as she speaks, Satya finds that the wind is softer, the gulls have stopped their constant chatter, and the waves come to a quiet crash at her feet.

The water never touches her.

“To end another day.”

Satya’s speaking this time. And her voice surprises them both.

“It happened.”

_I am starting the end._

_And the beginning._

_I am Alpha and Omega._

“You joined the dead, you know.” Ana’s voice is like touching velvet. “It’s something you get used to knowing.”

The people Ana knows, but Satya doesn’t. Names like Jack and Gabriel are only photos and prints. Even as Jack walks down the corridors with heavy footsteps, his appearance is spectral. Grey hair to match pallid skin and eyes that she never sees up close. He’s only a voice that matches Ana’s: gravel and velvet, aged and well-worn. Satya wonders if they all sound like that. Or if she will, too, as time catches up to her.

“Did it feel like this?”

Ana’s quiet.

“Feeling…”

“Lost?”

“ _Different_.”

Another moment of waves and wind passes.

“It did. I guess it’s a lot to start your life over.”

Ana’s done it many times. Base to base, city to city. Transient and somehow still grounding. Perhaps because of how rare the luxury was.

“I did terrible things.”

Ana’s quiet.

“I hurt them.”

_Them_ being the ones Satya was told she was helping. Rosa, for instance. Her face is burnt now because of her -- the skin pulled across her face like vinyl. Satya thinks of her always, repeating her name in spurts and finding her in the corners of Gibraltar’s watchpoint. Does Rosa feel about her the way she does? A beautiful thing turned ugly because of bastardized intentions.

Like the heroes who litter the Watchpoint, Satya walks in glory’s shadow, trying to understand what it means to open after closing, in more ways than one.

“We all have.”

That makes it worse somehow, knowing that Satya lives among dirty hands. Her guilt feels disproportionate. Messiah-levels of betrayal, she might say, looking up and asking why it had to be her. Divinely piteous. Her nose still carries residual bruising even after Angela’s help. She apologized with a silent smile when Satya flinched.

“It’s not perfect. We haven’t been open for long, so I use what I can.”

A doctor and mother’s touch cradle a sturdy jawline.

“Sometimes, you just have to let time do the rest.”

Satya’s waiting for time to start moving again.

Ana snaps her back to the present.

“Satya.”

She’s tired of hearing her name. It meant that she’s still alive enough to listen to people say it.

Wasn’t death supposed to be peaceful?

“You don’t have to explain yourself.”

Explain. Justify. To argue that, despite pretending, Satya _still_ wants to live. Another re-do of a re-do granted to her so many times, even she lost track of the number.

And she lives in a world of numbers -- she finds them in everything.

“We all do things we’re not proud of. Even the worst of us here--” And those who aren’t. The ones also thought to be dead and are also living ghosts.

“We all did it to make a difference. Because we thought it would make things better.”

Look where it led them.

“Trust me when I say that I understand.”

Ana’s hand grabs Satya’s. It’s clean now -- long washed away of the blood and dirt that ate away at her during the times she couldn’t do anything about it. But it still feels dirty. It always will.

Let time do the rest, Angela said.

“I came to get you. People say they haven’t seen you since noon. But I kept my eye. I knew you would be here.”

A personal guardian. Misguided, maybe. To care for someone with so much ahead of her, and to also have nothing left.

Satya’s shedding the first, painful layers of wounds that will harden to scars. _C’est la vie_. Amélie used to sigh that phrase when inconvenienced by life’s circumstances. Such is life, so goes the phrase, to remind herself that everyone else is just like her: people placed by chance and making the most of what they find.

Such is life, unto death. Memento mori.

Satya sees just as much chaos as she does in harmony.

“Let’s go home.”

Home is at the top of Gibraltar, overlooking the darkened sea and sand. Morocco devolves into spatters of lights.

Satya follows Ana without another word.

* * *

Ana said home, but Gibraltar is dark on the inside. The lights are bright but artificial despite their attempts to mimic the sun. They’re dimmed now, though, because the base is set for wind-down. It’s 22:30, but there are signs of life in the corridors. There are people working graveyards, or even the lifelong insomniac, like Hana, pressing buttons on a blue-light screen that spurns her. Satya rarely has these moments. Routine dictates the times she works, stops, sleeps. Her exile disrupted the sleep-wake cycles by shaking them violently, and the violence is what’s kept her awake.

The fear of violence. The _threat_ of violence. That’s what made Satya the most awake. It reminds her that she’s a refugee now, like the ones seen on-screen across the world. Isolation still makes it feel unfamiliar.

Satya looks at herself in the mirror and grimaces at how human she seems. Her eyes sink in her skull to depths she hasn’t seen in years. The circles around her eyes are more like bruises with how dark they are. They match the ones that tint her nose in dull purple-reds. The bone still bulges a little too far from her face because of swelling. A steady soreness begins every time she frowns, which is often. Like a careless mistake -- a bump on a branch or door. One Satya can hypothetically write off as mistakes in later retellings between strangers who don’t recognize her.

At this rate, she might be forgotten already. A name on Rakshana’s own memorial dedicated to deceased alumni. Soon to be ignored by the future of younger, fresher faces. Children like her: eager to make a difference and be something. A thing, and not a one. Their objectification starts early.

“Hey”

Satya despises that word, as much as she hates hearing her name. _Hey_. It sounds offensively casual and implies familiarity. She isn’t familiar with anyone here. Like a stranger among family friends, she’s forced to the sidelines and watches from the outside in.

But, Satya turns around, regardless, and scolds herself mentally. Don’t look back... it’s hard to follow that rule when the voices are all behind her.

Lúcio stands outside her door with folded arms and tired eyes. They look the same as hers: a deep, dark brown, seemingly endless, and full of things Satya will never have the words to describe. His head is covered with a cap of silk bearing the colors of Brazil -- green, yellow, blue, with a stripe of white. If Satya breathes deeply, she can smell the tang of hair products as they soak into the fabric. It’s a familiar scent, reminding her of the time it takes to end the day as well as start it.

Lúcio’s face is different up close. In-person, his jaw is home to shaving scars and the beginnings of stubble that poke from his skin. His appearance is also clean; Satya realized he wore makeup when he asked for her eyeliner. And specifically, her; Lúcio’s been making his presence a point to her. An olive branch by burying the hatchet.

At least, the side that hurt the most when struck.

The fact that Satya’s turned to face him signals that they’ve both picked up shovels and started digging.

“Still not unpacked?”

Referring to her sleeping quarters; Satya refuses to call it a “room,” never mind her own. Aside from the necessities -- sheets, a pillow -- and its original furniture, the room looks empty. Practically unlived, if it weren’t for the people currently inside it.

Satya and Lúcio hear their voices echo.

“This isn’t mine.”

The room. The sheets. Here. Herself. They belong to someone else -- an imposter who looks like her. The real Satya still lingers along the lines of a divided highway.

“You’ve been here a while.”

11 days. Satya’s counting every day since the end began.

She doesn’t answer with words. Her throat feels tight, and it’s too hard to speak. Lúcio doesn’t push her, either. By now, it’s painful to admit that this is an improvement.

* * *

They’ve been distantly close, always arm’s length in places of intimacy. Meeting outside of Angela’s office, for example, waiting to be called in for injections. Both Satya and Lúcio are capable of self-administration, but for now, they’ve decided to yield. At least Satya, who allows for Angela to take the lead with hands that recite years of practice in a matter of swift, painless seconds.

Or she thinks. Satya winces, and Angela offered the same apologetic smile when she’d fixed her nose.

“I know.”

It’s over as soon as it starts. Angela’s hands work to massage the surrounding tissue. Work it in and minimize pain.

“It helps if you remember to breathe.”

On cue, Satya breathes in through the nose, holds, then out through the nose, slowly, shaking from the sudden expansion of her lungs. She feels herself sinking, enough for Angela’s hands to sink deeper, work harder while feeling softer.

Then those hands are gone. Satya’s sitting in Angela’s office in her underwear and top, wearing a bandage that protects the injection site.

Angela’s turned away as a sign of respect, offering Satya her privacy.

“You’ll be sore for the next few days. Maybe some bruising. Call me if you get any other symptoms.” 

The usual onslaught of worst-case scenarios: swelling, fever, flu-like symptoms. Any other fluids that don’t belong to a typical bloody bandage. So long as she’s not dying, Angela doesn’t expect Satya to call or say another word. Not until next time when they meet again and do the same thing. Business as usual.

Satya gets dressed and leaves, predictably, in silence.

She looks at Lúcio on her way out. Gives him a nod -- curt but in acknowledgment. Showing respect. The sentiment is return as he walks to see Angela, headphones on with one ear open. A regular, mellow rhythm pounds against the speakers. Voices that sound like his, saying the things he says, a message to vox populi to make them listen.

Satya did everything she could to keep them silent. 

It makes her think of the music she got to listen to. As she walks down the hall towards the employee-only exit, she finds herself thinking of the music she’s heard. If she’s with Kiran, it’s all American artists, folk and country and bluegrass, mixed with the loud beats of bass, seductive and thick. Chaos in her taste, she played it loud and proud, just like the stars on TV and in music and movies. Anything to feel that energy she imagined all those heroes felt.

Satya hears the more mellow pop in her head, a woman with a soft, crooning voice, holding notes at the end of sentences. She sings of confrontation at the end of two roads. A dead-end and a burning bush...and the absence of “you.” Kiran. The person who Satya saw as carelessly sentimental from the moment they met.

A part of her still knows it’s true. She’d always been too fond of the souvenirs by things that weren’t permanent. Shells and rocks -- things that were eventually forgotten until found again a few years later.

And cigarettes. Kiran would always buy a pack of cigarettes from a different store every time she went off-campus or went someplace new. Because of that, she’s her own connoisseur of carcinogenic agents. But’ she’s predictable, like Satya, in her own ways. A lover of sharp tastes and smooth burns, Kiran enjoys the menthol varieties that numb the tongue and throat. Her eclecticism allows for a separate buzz every time. _Keep it fresh_ , she’d say, then blow out the icy smoke that froze her lungs.

It makes Satya pull out the pack from her pocket. She’s wearing an outfit of dark red pants a matching shawl and a tan-colored top. Exile or not, she’ll be damned if she doesn’t dress. The cigarette package is light teal in color. A surefire indication of menthol flavor, glistening with the bottom half of the cellophane wrapper.

The brand is unmistakably American. Satya lifts the top to see the foil wrinkled and a shorter cigarette beneath the film. The yellow-brown tar only starts to color the filter, and Satya sees lipstick wrapped around the paper.

A souvenir. Again. Of course, Kiran couldn’t help but test a drag or two as her way of saying dibs. Another quirk that Satya’s learned to live with as she learns another long, painful lesson about compromise.

Lúcio walks out the door as soon as she lights up.

They’re both frozen for an uncomfortably long moment. Satya’s placed her hands down and taken a drag by the time Lúcio finds his voice.

“You smoke?”

“No.”

It’s spoken on her exhale and ends on and open-mouthed hum that billows smoke between them.

Lúcio’s scoff is his reply, puzzled by Satya’s sudden change in presentation.

“Pretty, uh, _bold_ of you to say. But, sure.”

He verbally emphasizes bold and extends his hand in her direction.

He’s holding a lighter attached to the collar of his shirt.

“Your light’s out.”

* * *

Satya’s hand reaches down and squeezes her thigh and feels a similar sensation across her face. Vishkar said that the nerves might fuse together to make up for the missing limb, despite the medical team’s effort to preserve original nerve sensation. Statistically very common among amputees or those who happened to suffer nerve damage. It makes Satya close her eyes and attempt to retain her focus. Back to the present moment, and not on what happened. The irreversible.

The facts. 

Lúcio’s headphones are the over-the-ear type and glow a vibrant neon green that chisel dark shadows in his skin. Satya hears a rhythm mixing hard, snaring drums with splashes of electronica that recall the days of early technicolor. It reminds her about the lives of others on this base -- the ones that continue even as others end. Like the end of a disaster, the world finds ways of moving on. Another wound applied to the skin and endure the long process of healing and tearing and striving to heal again.

A re-do of a re-do, when Satya’s been given fourth and fifth chances and asks for a sixth.

Dead end and the burning bush, and Satya is alone, looking for ways on how to reclaim herself.

Wedging the hatchet further down will assist in doing that.

“Here.”

Lúcio has a card no bigger than a pack of breath strips between his fingers and holds it in front of her.

“Thought you could use the noise. I can’t sleep in a quiet room, either.”

He’s heard her tapping around the walls for a way to activate the fans. Satya doesn’t wear parts of work at home, even the important ones. She has more compact forms of canceling some noise and channeling others. Sets like Lúcio and Hana, over-the-ear, or even smaller, fitting to the shell of her ear and nearly invisible. Mise en place, Kiran had said, was the word that the real chefs used to mean order. It’s how the world worked within a single room, moving in synch, and reaching an end to make something that everyone could say they were proud of.

The phrase fascinated Satya, and it meant everything to her.

A world to work for her, and not to work for the world.

Vishkar promised that for years. To be a god in the world and the reason behind it all.

They didn’t say the cost of keeping the image.

Satya reaches and takes the card. It’s designed to slip into her comm device seamlessly and does so in a single motion.

It plays the sound of waves and makes the room echo.

Satya is silent and still. She doesn’t notice how it makes her feel until she feels herself shaking.

“I’m sorry.”

Lúcio looks up to stare at her. He’s briefly surprised before returning to normal. Stoic, with those deep, sunken eyes and living a life she doesn't have.

And she repeats it.

" _I'm so sorry_."

She's not aware that she's started crying in front of someone else until she feels her neck itching.

"Yeah. Me, too," is all Lúcio has to say before another pause. "And you, too, you know. For this."

Taking this much to tell her what they've been saying all along. They must be so tired of saying the same damn things to the people who never listen.   
People like her, needing a tragedy to prove a point.

Lúcio's turned to leave, but he keeps her present by speaking in a way that sobers.

"You're doing good for the punch you got hit with. No one's kicking you out anytime soon." _Not even me_ , he says by not saying it.

"We're all on the same boat, now. I just hope you keep that in mind."

No man an island, or something along those lines. At this point, it's useless and downright stupid to not take what's given to her. Satya can only go so far before she finds herself sinking back to doubt. A product of over-emphasis of the danger of idle hands, she's been trained to give whatever it takes to make herself an example of perfection. A walking pinnacle of human accomplishment, even when the bone starts to stick out from the flesh.

"The least you could do is tell us you're staying."

And where else does she have to go?

By now Lúcio's back in his room, headphones on and volume set to swallow the world around him. Satya's left staring at an empty corridor, watching the lights dim and brighten like blinking eyes. They light the way for the occasional body on the way to the restroom or water cooler before turning off again. Satya watches a cycle of this -- maybe two -- before closing herself in her own quarters, where she stares at the bag of belongings deemed good enough to take with her. A collection of devices poke from the seal and even shine in shadow. They're projects she'd been working on, or prototypes asking for new improvements. Things to take her mind off the world around her and give her a pretense of meaning. The rest of her bag's contents are the necessities: toiletries and products to make herself and her presence tastefully known in a place so lacking it.

And in desperate, _desperate_ need.

Satya fills that need by starting to unpack.


End file.
